Go-go 60s

The bubble of the 1960s and subsequent collapse have been well chronicled by John Brooks in his book, The Go-Go Years.[1]

Sometimes in the middle nineteen sixties, probably in late 1965 or late 1966, the expression "go-go" as used in the United States came to designate a method of operating in the stock market, characterized by rapid in-and-out trading of huge blocks of stock, with an eye to large profits taken very quickly, and the term was used specifically to apply to the operation of certain mutual funds, none of which had previously operated in anything like a free, fast, or lively manner.[2]

In this period the "Nifty Fifty" emerged as a list of "one decision" stocks that could be bought and held forever. This list of stocks included Coca-Cola and IBM as well as troubled companies of today, such as Xerox and Polaroid. Like the investment trusts of the 1920s, mutual funds were touted as the fastest path to riches for the common man. As the bubble expanded, investment gurus such as Gerald Tsai used aggressive investment techniques to generate huge increases in the value of their mutual fund shares, while others made millions building the conglomerate corporations that spanned many industries and nations. Brooks well captured the euphoria that emanated from this new-era stock market: "As mutual-fund asset values went up, new money poured in. Tsai and others like him seemed to have invented a money-making machine for anyone with a few hundred or several thousands of dollars to invest."[1]